My SIL sent us the following forward:
>>>>>Nation Building
January 18, 2006
Scott Paulsen
Think about this the next time someone argues that a professional sports franchise is not important to a city's identity:
In the 1980's, as the steel mills and their supporting factories shut down from Homestead to Midland, Pittsburghers, faced for the first time in their lives with the specter of unemployment, were forced to pick up their families, leave their home towns and move to more profitable parts of the country. The steel workers were not ready for this. They had planned to stay in the burgh their entire lives. It was home.
And now, it's passing from one generation to the next. The children of displaced Pittsburghers, who have never lived in the Steel City, are growing up Steelers fans.
All around the NFL, the word is out that the Pittsburgh Steeler fans travel well, meaning they will fly or drive from Pittsburgh to anywhere the Steelers play, just to see their team. The one aspect about that situation the rest of the NFL fails to grasp is that, sometimes, the Steeler Nation does not have to travel. Sometimes, we're already there.
Yes, the short sighted steel mills screwed our families over.
But they did, in a completely unintended way, create something new and perhaps more powerful than an industry.
They helped created a nation.
A Steeler Nation. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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